It’s a challenging time for housing in the U.S.
That’s not a radical or new statement, but it bears saying outright—housing has long been a serious flashpoint for millions, and data for 2025 gestures towards a tricky time in the marketplace. As many Americans are struggling to afford homes, prices are estimated to increase by 3% as home supply remains tight, according to J.P. Morgan Research.
This means that the engine that powers most home purchases—the mortgage—is as important as ever. Long-simmering demand and slightly softening rates (at least, by the end of 2025) suggest that mortgages are poised for a surging year. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage origination volume is estimated to hit $2.3 trillion, up from about $1.79 trillion in 2024. Total loan count is expected to be 6.5 million loans this year, a notable uptick from 5.1 million last.
The mortgage marketplace isn’t exactly known for being tech-forward—like insurance, the mortgage industry is essential, entrenched, and characterized by legacy technology. It also isn’t a space that’s attracting VC backing en masse. Though deal count and deal value for mortgage tech startups hit a recent peak in 2021—67 deals, $3.8 billion in total value per PitchBook—2024 saw deal count at 32, with total deal value at about $300 million.
But for the startups in the mortgage tech space, especially with this refinancing boom in the works, there’s opportunity. That seems to be true for Vesta, a mortgage infrastructure startup backed by (among others) Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Ventures.
“In many ways, I think the mortgage industry would like to be less in the public consciousness than it has been in the last 15 years,” said Mike Yu, Vesta CEO and cofounder. “Because right now it’s got a bad rap.”
There are some recent green shoots that the company disclosed to Fortune. Vesta’s last public round was announced in 2022, a $30 million Series A, and Fortune can now report that the company has raised an additional $20 million from strategics. (The company declined to disclose investors in the round.) Additionally, Vesta says that, in the last year, the loan volume running through the platform has tripled, as has its new customer count. Those new customers will, when on-boarded, mark a 30x increase in volume running through the platform, according to the company.
Van Richardson, cofounder and CEO at Vesta customer Filo Mortgage, said that the industry has been in a “constant state of flux,” but he’s optimistic about the future—in part due to new technological possibilities.
“The phrase ‘this is how it’s always been done’ pops up a lot,” said Richardson. “We looked at technology partners that operated from that perspective, and it works to a certain degree, but doesn’t allow you to expand…We’ve been able to expand in ways we didn’t even think we could by leveraging technology like Vesta. We want to buck ‘the way it’s always been done’ and I think they also embody changing that narrative.”
Vesta is still in its early days, as the company was founded in 2020. And the beginning was especially slow.
“Getting the first customer was basically a year-and-a-half in,” Yu told Fortune. “They actually signed, and then went live about two years in.”
As the company has signed more (and bigger) customers, the challenge has now shifted.
“Go-to-market in the early days is very much: How do you get your first early adopters to bet on you?” said Yu. “Right now, the hard execution challenge is very much: What’s it going to look like to scale?”
Yu is well-aware he’s hunkering in for a long haul. But Vesta’s ability to come into the mortgage space and (with lots of work) sign customers like Richardson is its own indicator, Yu says, that the mortgage industry is ready for change—even if we won’t necessarily see it.
“If we’re the most successful at our job, nobody will think about it,” said Yu. “The tech will just work.”
Scoop…At the end of February, Olympus Partners had raised $2.87 billion for its latest flagship fund, a person familiar with the situation said. The middle market private equity firm is targeting $3.5 billion to $3.8 billion for Olympus Growth Fund VIII, which has a $4 billion hard cap. Olympus plans to hold a final close in March, they said. —Luisa Beltran
Hark, an IPO!…CoreWeave filed its much-anticipated S-1 yesterday. Though red hot demand for AI has sent the company’s topline soaring more than 700% year over year, there are quite a few question marks for investors to ponder. Read more here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
Correction, March 4, 2025: The email version of this letter misstated Vesta’s funding raised to date.
VENTURE DEALS
- Callio Therapeutics, a Seattle, Wash. and Singapore-based biotech company designed to improve cancer therapy, raised $187 million in Series A funding. Frazier Life Sciences led the round and was joined by Jeito Capital and others.
- Swap, a London, U.K.-based e-commerce operating system, raised $40 million in Series B funding. ICONIQ Growth led the round and was joined by existing investors Cherry Ventures, QED Investors, and 9900 Capital.
- Cloudsmith, a Belfast, Northern Ireland-based software supply chain security platform, raised $23 million in Series B funding. TCV led the round and was joined by Insight Partners and existing investors.
- Rinse, a San Francisco-based laundry and dry cleaning pickup and delivery app, raised $23 million in Series D funding. LG Electronics led the round and was joined by Trinity Capital.
- Instant, a Sydney, Australia-based retention marketing platform for ecommerce brands, raised $18 million in Series A funding. Hummingbird Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investors.
- Archipelo, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup designed to secure human and AI-generated code from security breaches, raised $12 million across pre-seed and seed rounds. The $4 million pre-seed round was led by David Weisburd, Bill Tai, Eric Yuan, Gil Penchina, and Andy Bechtolsheim, who were joined by Samsung Next, Sriram Krishnan, Steve Suda, and David Lee, Nima Capital, Anima Anandkumar, and Global Founders Capital. The $8 million seed round was led by Dell Technologies Capital and joined by Bill Tai, Sangha Capital, David Weisburd, Gil Penchina, and existing investors.
- Aryon Security, a Tel Aviv-based Cloud Security Enforcement Platform designed to prevent enterprise cloud risks before they are deployed in production systems, raised $9 million in seed funding. Viola Ventures and Blumberg Capital led the round and were joined by Shlomo Kramer and other angel investors.
- Kleio, a Paris, France-based developer of conversational AI for enterprise purposes, raised €3 million ($3.15 million) in seed funding. Serena and Daphni led the round and were joined by Houman Behzadi, Julien Bellanger, Raphael Simon, and Dave Kellogg.
- HeyMilo, a New York City-based AI-powered candidate screening platform, raised $2.2 million in seed funding. Canaan Partners led the round and was joined by Alumni Ventures and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Clearlake Capital Group acquired a majority stake in ModMed, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based developer of health care software for payment processing, electronic health records, and other processes. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- GS Foods Group, backed by Highview Capital and A&M Capital Partners, acquired The Danielsen Company, a Chico, Calif.-based foodservice provider for grade schools. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- J.C. Flowers acquired Pepper Advantage, a London, U.K.-based credit management firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
- Genstar Capital agreed to acquire a majority stake in First Eagle Investments, a New York City-based investment management firm, from Blackstone, Corsair Capital, and their co-investors. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- H.I.G. Capital acquired a majority stake in TIMETOACT GROUP, a Cologne, Germany-based provider of IT services for upper medium-sized companies, from Equistone Partners Europe. Financial terms were not disclosed.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
- ICG, a London, U.K.-based private equity firm, raised $11 billion for the firm’s fifth Strategic Equity Fund focused on single asset continuation vehicles for high-quality companies in North America and Western Europe.
- Garnett Station Partners, a New York City-based private equity firm, raised $1.2 billion for their fifth fund focused on the consumer and business services, health & wellness, automotive, and food & beverage services sectors.
PEOPLE
- HarbourVest Partners, a Boston, Mass.-based private equity firm, promoted Rima Bansal, Nick Bellisario, Melissa Cahill, Nick Fleischhacker, Jackie Peradotto, Martina Schliemann, Stephen Tamburelli, and Dorit Zak to managing director. The firm also promoted Houda Hamdouch, Gina McClary, and Ziyao Su to principal, as well as Bradford Lebeau, Argy Portokalak, Milan Prodanovic, and Tom White to senior vice president.